Testimony of the Avarice
by joe6991
Summary: Harry Potter, the Master of Death, travels to the Land of Faerie to seek and destroy the last horcrux of the Dark Lord Voldemort.
1. The Druidstone Passage

_**A/N:**_ _I know, I know. You'll never forgive me a new story when so much unfinished wreckage lies in my wake. But then, I really like this idea. Read and grow fat, ladies and gentlemen, on something a little different... a little whimsical... but still the same old Joe._

 _ **Testimony of the Avarice**_

 _ **Chapter One - The Druidstone Passage**_

Along the coast there is a bay.  
Above the bay arch sea-worn cliffs.  
Atop the cliffs there rests a pub.  
In the pub there sits a man…  
…he drinks alone.

The pub was known as the _Druidstone_ , an old limestone building, a haphazard collection of twisted floors and hidden nooks, that stood as a silent sentinel, a lighthouse, against the howling winds blowing in off St. Bride's Bay—gales that rattled windows, that whipped sand and salt across the wilds of Pembrokeshire National Park in coldest, darkest Wales.

The man sat on a worn and wonky barstool, magenta robes flowing over the legs of the velvet-cushioned seat. He could be standing, his long and silvery beard tucked into his lap, but here he sits and here he contemplates his drink. The rain and the wind batter the _Druidstone_ , but the old pub has weathered such storms before. A Jack Russell Terrier, as old as creation, wiry and grey and cross, sleeps curled before the gently flickering fireplace, legs twitching in dream. Save for a few dull bulbs, the fire in the hearth is the only source of light in the small Poet's Bar on the lower level of the _Druidstone_ , built close enough to the cliffs to throw a stone and hit the angry water two hundred feet below.

The dog's name is Charlie, and the man's name, as the bartender is soon to learn, is Albus Dumbledore.

Bryan, the pub landlord and sole wintry bartender, stood behind the long mahogany bar, curved like a horseshoe, against the southern wall of his establishment, the wood stained with glass rings and thirty years of burnt down candles. The power went out often and here, as in most places of influence and _con_ fluence, the old ways still held. Fire, chief among them. Ashtrays were no longer allowed indoors, but the dells where the once-heavy weights had worn away the wood still marked the bar top.

Bryan leaned against the spirit shelf polishing wine glasses, the bottles behind him—some of them coated in a decade or more of dust—an army at his back. He had used one of those bottles that night, pouring a dram of Firewhisky for the old, bearded man sitting at the bar. An odd bottle, curiously warm, and one Bryan didn't remember buying any time in the last three decades. But there it had been, amber and aged, nestled between the Lagavulin and the Glenfiddich, as dusty as the rest, when called into service.

Only three customers had made the somewhat treacherous coastal walk to the _Druidstone_ that night. Two regulars, who knew the path along the cliffs so well they could have—and indeed, often did—walk the muddy trail in the dark and the storms blind-drunk. The regulars, Alan and Alan, sat playing chess in one dimly lit corner near the warmth of the fire. Alan from Trenwyth Farm looked a shade worse for wear than Alan from Monmouth, but then the winter had been a cruel, unnaturally long one. Strange fogs, mumblings of the old haunts, of things stirring… His other customer was the old man with the lifelong beard.

This time of year, Bryan was lucky to get the two regulars, let alone a third. The old pub had dozens of rooms and used some of them as beds for weary travellers during the high season, but this deep into winter and the reception desk upstairs had sat disused for a few months. During summer, when the weather was a shade better and the coastal path saw steady foot traffic, Bryan pulled double duty as hotel manager upstairs and pub landlord below. He often joked with the guests that they'd meet his twin brother behind the bar when they shook off their mud-coated boots and jackets and headed down for an ale or two.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like something else, sir?" Bryan asked the old man. No spring chicken himself, hair as white as snow, still Bryan felt an age younger than his customer. A customer who had been staring intently at his dram of whisky for the last half hour, not taking a sip. "Tea? The wife has proper Welsh lamb in the oven, Mr…?"

From behind a pair of half-moon spectacles, the old man's eyes met Bryan's and—if not for the fact that he was already leaning against the spirit shelves—Bryan would have taken a step back. He was considering eyes as deep and as _knowing_ as any he had ever seen. The eyes of a man who had seen some things in his time. Eyes that knew how fragile civilisation was, because they had seen it come crashing down… more than once.

Bryan was reminded of the old fairy stories he had heard in his youth ( _…things stirring_ ), tales of the Fair Folk, who danced and drank in wild, chaotic merriment, and lured mortals to their doom in the Dark Ages all along St. Bride's Bay. Old Hob, Puck, the trickster menagerie. Here, for no reason he could figure, was a man with eyes who had seen such things. Knowing without knowing, Bryan saw in the old man a knight, a protector, against things as absurd as fairy tales. For a moment, just a heartbeat, Bryan understood and believed it all. Then he blinked, the knowing faded, the night returned.

"Dumbledore," the old man said, as if that were the most normal name in the world "And no, thank you, I have all I require."

Bryan nodded, calling on his wisdom of thirty years behind the bar, seeing folk at their most disarmed, and knowing when to talk and when to shut'thy'clap, as his father used to say.

The single dram of whisky he'd placed in front of Mr. Dumbledore had sat unloved and undrunk for the last half hour. Occasionally, his worn hand, wrinkled with age—the other hidden in the folds of his robe, cradled almost against his stomach—would creep across the bar toward the glass, touch the rim, then pull back.

 _Here's a man who knows his drink_ , Bryan thought.

A crash of thunder-struck-lightning rumbled and flashed through the cosy bar. Old Charlie, as loyal and as grumpy a dog as ever there was, grumbled and huffed in his sleep. For a moment, just the moment between heartbeats, Bryan thought he could see right _through_ Mr. Dumbledore as if he were a ghost. He gasped, blinked in the aftershock of the lightning, but the old man seemed as solid as ever, if still oddly dressed in his magenta robe. Bryan shook his head, fanciful fairy tales taking hold too easily that night, and collected the next glass to be polished.

The wooden door toward the cliffs swung open, letting in a blast of cold wind and fat coin-drops of rain across the threshold. A man, hooded and cloaked, stepped into the _Druidstone_ , passing under the original fifteenth-century archway—carved with strange, archaic runes—and hauled the heavy brass-bound oak door closed behind him.

Bryan raised an eyebrow but also found his smile at his second unexpected customer of the evening—albeit another strangely dressed one. He didn't need thirty years of bartending experience to wager a guess that Mr. Dumbledore and the new man, who walked as if he were a lot younger and less bearded, knew one another. The cloaked stranger limped on a simple wooden cane, notched along the hilt, his pale hand gripping the handle as if each step pained him.

He approached the bar, Mr. Dumbledore's stool, and placed his free hand on the old man's shoulder. "Good evening, Professor," he said with genuine, if tired, warmth.

The man with the cane sat at the third stool along the bar, leaving a one stool gap between himself and Dumbledore, perhaps expecting another guest, and lowered his hood. As Bryan had suspected, he was a young man—somewhere in his twenties—a shock of unruly black hair, an angular face, glasses, and… well, he had the eyes of the old man sitting next to him, if not the years. _Fairytale eyes_. Wearied was the closest word that fit, and wild at the edges. For the second time that evening, Bryan was struck with the certainty he was tending bar to men who had decided the weight of the world, her hidden secrets and darkest evils, was worth carrying—worth _sharing_.

Again, that certainty faded as if in dream, as swiftly as it had gripped him.

"Harry, dear boy," Mr— _Professor_ —Dumbledore said. "I worried you had been waylaid."

Harry eased himself back on his stool, a storm's worth of rain dripping from his black cloak and onto the old grey flagstones. He leaned his cane against the bar and rubbed at his knee in slow, deep circles. His eyes squinted, but he gave no other sign of discomfort.

"Good evening, young sir," Bryan said. "What can the house do for you this evening?"

Harry eyed the array of bottles on the shelves, the bridge of beer taps, and wrapped his knuckles against the bar. "A glass of red, please. Dealer's choice."

Bryan nodded and collected one of his freshly polished glasses and cracked the cap on a bottle of French red wine. He poured a healthy sized swig into the glass, never one to put his finger on the scale—something else his father used to say.

Harry accepted the glass with thanks and swirled the wine under his nose. He inclined his head once and said softly, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Professor Dumbledore considered, then nodded. The implied sigh in that single nod spoke to regret, as clear as Bryan had ever seen in a man. He picked up his dram of whisky. "To your health and happiness, Harry."

Harry found half a smile. "And yours, sir, always."

With a well-practiced flick, almost a magic trick, Professor Dumbledore knocked back the dram and made the whisky disappear. He settled the glass back on the bar and didn't wince against the hard liquor, or cough.

"May I request another, please, barman," Dumbledore asked—and it wasn't really a question.

Bryan nodded and retrieved the bottle he didn't remember stocking and poured a neat two-fingers into the glass.

"If you could leave the bottle."

Bryan left the bottle.

* * *

An hour later, the storm outside well and truly one to knock down sheep fences and send the whole sorry mess of loose cliffs and quarries along the coast crashing into the dark depths of the sea, Harry still sipped at his first glass of wine and Professor Dumbledore had seen off a third of the whisky bottle before him.

"He should not be much longer now," Dumbledore said, a mild slur to his words.

Harry nodded and tilted his glass in the dull light, so the liquid shone red on the bar in refracted patterns. "I worry some sacrifices are too much to ask," he said.

"Nonsense," Dumbledore replied.

"Only two horcruxes left," Harry mused. "The one we've come for tonight, and the one…" He rubbed at his scar. "Well, not to dwell on sacrifices."

Dumbledore removed his left hand from within the folds of his robe and revealed a blackened, withered husk, fingers curled as if with severe arthritis. Faint green lines shone softly along the path of his veins, cracks in the facade. The infection was spreading, deepening.

"I would drink to that," he muttered, and knocked back another Firewhisky. "Drink and summon the Avarice."

The already dim bar seemed to grow a little dimmer, and Harry supposed the drink had something to do with that. It was like casting a spell, in a way, a slow incantation.

Harry knew little of the Avarice—the demons that preyed on humanity's weaknesses, humanity's addictions. Every human could be influenced by them to some degree, but only magical folk could manifest them into the world. They were something akin to an Obscurus, a manifestation of a wizard's regrets.

Harry had read one of the old tomes in Dumbledore's office and understood the edges of such creatures. The _Encyclopaedia Avarice_ , written by many over the years, an ongoing task that had fallen to Dumbledore half a century ago, and would find another host upon his death, catalogued the demons that plagued humanity. Transcribed and described the Avarice—the unseen race of creatures that fed on people, always, all the time—who seemed to exist to undo the inherent good in the world. The Dark Playground was their home, and they must be fought. One day at a time, as the saying goes.

At the time Harry had read the book, some years ago now, over four hundred and fifty unique demons, belonging to five unique subsets—sub-races, classes—of Avarice had been discovered and recorded. Demons responsible for Hate, Greed, Envy, Depression, Addiction, and other such sadnesses. Unfair to say they were responsible, Harry supposed, but they certainly profited from such misfortune.

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Supreme Mugwump, Grand Sorcerer, Order of Merlin (First Class), was an alcoholic. And he had the liver to prove it. One drink was too many and ten was not enough. For men and women like Dumbledore, having the first drink was like getting hit by a train—it wasn't ever the third carriage you had to worry about.

And if he drank enough, if he let it consume another piece of his soul, well… That's why they were here tonight.

Harry felt the presence over his shoulder before he saw the creature. He stood up a little straighter in his chair, hand reaching for his cane. Dumbledore sighed and didn't turn, but looked into the mirror on the other side of the bar, seeing something that wasn't there.

"Good evening, Josiah," Professor Dumbledore said, as the demon stepped into view and leaned casually against the bar.

"Albus," the creature whispered with a deep nod, almost a bow. The demon had great respect for the man in his thrall. Josiah's eyes flicked to Harry, up to his scar. His eyes widened a fraction and he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "And the Master of Death himself. To what do I owe the pleasure of this summons, Albus? It's been half a century since you last touched a drop of drink. I figured I'd never see you again. Not this side of the veil, at least."

Dumbledore swayed gently on his stool—drunk, yes, but drunk was like riding a bike to an alcoholic. You never forgot how, and it was all about balance. The demon between them had used the drink to step into this world, borne on the magic of the greatest sorcerer in the world.

Harry beheld the creature, which looked vaguely human—though one that had been in the ground for a year or more. It, he, Josiah, wore a crumpled suit that hung from his skeletal frame like a wrinkled shirt on a hanger. He wore an old-school top hat on his head, scuffed and torn. Thin strands of straw-like grey hair poked from under the rim. His skin was pale toward green, his cheeks sunken, caved in on the left revealing a smiling jaw of blackened teeth almost to his ear. He had one eye, bloodshot and yellowed. In his right socket was black nothingness, deep and disappearing into the back of his skull. Harry imagined all kinds of worms and legged creatures creeping back there and shuddered.

Josiah took the stool between Harry and Professor Dumbledore, easing into the worn wood with a creak of tired bones and a grimace to his hollow, gaunt face. Josiah sat as if the weight of the world that hung around the shoulders of the men either side of him was an easier weight to bear than another moment leaning against another bar.

Harry stared across the bar into the mirror and saw that the demon cast no reflection. He glanced at the Muggle barkeep, Bryan, doing a crossword down the far end of the bar, but if he noticed anything amiss then he had the best poker face Harry had ever seen.

"Not a social visit, I take it," Josiah said. A low grumbling, a dangerous growl, came from the fireplace. The old Jack Russell had awoken and was snarling, teeth bared, at the 'empty' stool between Harry and Dumbledore. Josiah cast a look over his shoulder and snorted. "I never liked dogs." He reached over the bar and helped himself to a glass and a small bottle of sparkling water. Again, the barkeep didn't seem to notice.

 _Some sort of perception charm_ , Harry thought.

"I ask again, why have you summoned me," Josiah waved to Dumbledore, drunk in his seat, "for I feel summoned, yes, indeed."

"I seek passage to the realm of the Fair Folk," Harry said.

Josiah sipped his sparkling water and sighed. "Realm of the who?"

Harry frowned. "The Fae. Faeries. Sometimes known as the Good People."

"No mortal has set foot in those realms in over five hundred years."

"We both know that's not true," Harry said. "Lord Vol—"

Josiah cut his hand down through the air. "That _creature_ is no longer mortal. You know that." He grunted. "Mortals do not return from the Fae. Though," Josiah said idly, a glint in his single, bloodshot eye, "you are the Master of Death." He shook his head. "No, the Fair Folk and the human race have been at war for centuries, sadly. This profits you nothing."

Dumbledore cleared his throat, his cheeks a comfortable drunken red. "According to our research, not so much at war as…" He twirled his hand in slow circles. "At odds."

"I see now why you chose this place to drink your drink, Albus," Josiah said. "We stand almost on top of the old stone circle. One of the old ways between the worlds. The lock is rusty, yes, the key's teeth blunt, but the stones still stand despite being buried."

Harry grasped his cane and held it low against his waist as if it were a sword. "We figured a dimension-hopping being such as yourself would know a few backdoors."

"What's in it for me?" Josiah asked.

Harry frowned. "You're already feeding on my friend, demon. For the first time in fifty years, and him weakened by dark magic already. The price is paid."

Josiah grunted again and took another sip of his sparkling water. Harry thought it idly cruel, wholly ironic, that an alcoholic demon was on the wagon.

"Are you prepared, Harry Potter?" Josiah asked. "Have you done your homework?"

"He is prepared," Dumbledore said, almost disinterested. He looked lost in his regrets, which was the gateway the demon had used, Harry wagered, to step into the _Druidstone_ that evening.

"Cold iron, holy water, salt for circles?" The demon eyed Harry askance. "Church bells, if you can conjure them, send fairies scattering. A true timepiece to measure the passage of minutes in the real world—mortals have spent what felt like an hour in their realms and returned to find centuries have passed. They crumble to dust, if they're lucky, before being driven mad."

Harry simply nodded.

Josiah chuckled, exasperated. Such a human emotion looked off on his ruined face. "They assault and torture and _eat_ , Harry Potter. They will know your true name, magic or not. They are alien and ineffable—you mortals are playthings to them, and any plan, any _trick_ , you think you have… they have seen it all before."

Harry drank the last of his wine. "Lord Voldemort tricked them. He tricked them into taking a piece of his soul, as if it were their idea." Harry clenched his hand into a fist. "I've given a great deal, as has the man next to you, to unmake the Dark Lord's horcruxes. Voldemort thinks the piece left with the Kindly Ones beyond our reach. He is wrong."

"Do you know why you call them the Fair Folk? The Good People? The Kindly Ones?" Josiah asked. "No, you know nothing."

"Why?"

"Because your race learnt a long time ago, when you still feared the setting sun and the rising moon, that to call them something _unkind_ is a sure way to bring their wrath down upon your head. The concept of empathy, Harry, does not occur to them. It simply does not."

"Voldemort must be stopped, and our time is running out. I will go."

Josiah sighed and then shrugged. "So be it. I will grant you this." He clicked his bony fingers and produced a key of bone infused with… iron. He handed the key to Harry.

"What does this unlock?"

Josiah waved the question away. "It'll fit any lock around here—any door in these parts—and open on the realms you're so keen to visit. God save you. Travel safe, Harry, and take the dog with you. Dogs are useful on the other side. Chatty."

Harry glanced at the old Jack Russell, hackles raised, growling in front of the fireplace. He eased himself off the stool and limped over to the dog. The old brown-grey eyes beheld him a touch uncertain until he knelt down on his haunches and offered his hand. The dog—Charlie, read the metal tag on his collar—considered and then licked Harry's fingers.

With a gruff bark, to Harry a sound that said 'let's be getting on with this then', the dog hopped out of his basket and approached the heavy old oak door of the Poet's Bar. Through the dark windows on either side, Harry glimpsed lashing rain and heard grumbling thunder. He eyed the key and, as if it had been made for such a door, slipped the iron-bone teeth into the lock.

He glanced back at Professor Dumbledore slumped in his stool, the creature of the Avarice next to him placed a thin arm around the headmaster's shoulders, and wished for things to be different.

Then he turned the key in the lock, because things could not be different, life was unfair, and the Dark Lord had to be stopped.

The door swung outwards of its own volition—not on St. Bride's Bay or the terrible storm—but on a sunlit forest glade, dotted with wildflowers and heady with the scent of pollen, the sweet syrup of honey, about a million glittering butterflies, and a trickling stream fed from a massive waterfall in the distance, under a twilit sky.

Old Charlie huffed again and looked up at Harry with his Malteser eyes. Come on, that look said. Together they stepped through the door and into the Land of Faerie.

* * *

Bryan blinked down at his crossword and realised he'd been staring at the same question, _two-down; injures with a pencil,_ say, eyes unfocused, for a good few minutes. He looked up and scanned the bar—the fire was lower than he remembered it, and Old Charlie had disappeared off somewhere. Unlike him, that. Once that dog was settled he remained settled.

Professor Dumbledore still sat at the bar, holding his head in one hand. His friend, Harry, had disappeared, leaving an empty wine glass with crimson stains around the rim—a kiss on the glass.

Bryan wandered over to see if Dumbledore needed anything and felt the blood in his veins freeze, his heart stop. Out of the corner of his eye, in the stool next to the old professor, he was certain he'd glimpsed a monster—a haggard, ruined figure, gaunt and fresh from the grave, top-hatted and hideous. The creature grinned at him, yellow teeth and a swollen black tongue behind that horrid smile.

Bryan stumbled forward a step, broke his paralysis, and Dumbledore's hazy eyes focused on him. "I say, my dear fellow, are you well?"

Bryan glanced at the stool again and saw it empty, nothing out of place. No demons, no monsters. He licked his lips and nodded. "Anything else I can get for you, sir?"

Dumbledore considered the bottle in front of him and shook his head. "I have everything I need," he said.

"Right you are."

Along the coast there is a bay.  
Above the bay arch sea-worn cliffs.  
Atop the cliffs there rests a pub.  
In the pub there sits a man…  
…he does not drink alone.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Read on, y'all._


	2. The Horizon Storm

_**Chapter Two – The Horizon Storm**_

Stepping through the doorway from the _Druidstone_ and into the Land of Faerie, sometimes known as the Fae & Forget, the Undying Lands, Threaded Story, and a cacophony of other names equally outlandish, absurd, and terrifying, made Harry's ears pop—a pressure akin to a sudden change in altitude.

He followed the gruff old dog Charlie into the new realm, crossing the threshold from old slabs of Welsh limestone to soft and spongy fragrant grass under an azure twilit sky.

He licked his lips, tasted traces of red wine from another world, and breathed air fresher than any in his life. Harry held his feet as a wave of dizziness—world-sickness vertigo—made his head spin. The foot of his cane sank into the yielding deep green grass and fertile soil. He stumbled forward a step, a gust of alien wind at his back, and heard the door home snap closed behind him—a clap as air rushed into a space no longer occupied by anything physical.

The atmosphere and the dizzy spell—wandless magic—were not the only changes to his senses, just the most obvious. The scent of honey, sweet wildflowers, and fresh spring water—a lush, almost menthol-cool aroma—threatened to overwhelm him. He had the instant and undeniable feeling that before stepping into the Land of Faerie, he had been living in a tinted world, a dull reality. For the first time in his twenty-three years, he was seeing the world without a filter. The brightness dialled to eleven.

His ruined knee—a constant, tangled mess of pain the last few years—hurt a whole lot less. The dizziness passed. Harry glanced over his shoulder to confirm the portal-doorway he had bargained for with the Avarice Josiah was gone. He stood up a little taller.

Charlie barked once, gruff but with a hint of satisfaction, of coming home, and pottered off in the direction of the tall yet narrow waterfall pooling at the base of amber-hewn cliffs about half a mile away. There was no discernible path through the fields of errant wildflowers, yet Harry felt certain, as did Charlie, that the waterfall was the way he wanted to be heading.

"You lead then, old man," he muttered to the dog, not without respect, and with a ring to his voice in that strange nether-place, almost a lyrical lilt not found in the real world.

Harry felt the pain in his knee ebbing with each step he took across the sea of wildflowers, the golden-red, violet-blue, and parchment-white blossoms sighing to either side as he limped on through, crowds parting and closing ranks behind him, masking his trail. Charlie was almost lost beneath the flowery waves, the curl of his undocked tail a periscope above the surface. He seemed to know where he was going.

"Hope your owner doesn't miss you," Harry said, a light breeze ruffling his unkempt hair, sending loose locks floating around his head almost like a halo. Magic permeated the Undying Lands. "Though perhaps he won't even notice you gone, eh?"

Time would be funny over here, despite protections against such funny things. Of all their study, their research done, Harry and Dumbledore knew they could only mitigate the risks at best. Minimise the damage, try and localise the fallout to just those who had decided to mess with matters ought left alone. He'd been told— _warned_ —again by Josiah of the Avarice, Dumbledore's personal demon. The headmaster had wanted to pursue the course into Faerie, home of the Good Folk, and hiding place of Lord Voldemort's' penultimate horcrux, despite reason.

Harry had argued against the means used to access these lush lands, namely at the expense of Dumbledore's health, but needs always seemed to must these dark days…

He shifted the clasp of his cloak around his neck, the hood still damp from the Welsh rain, a heavy weight between his shoulders. Droplets of reality. He wore a double-layered cloak: silvery enchanted material underneath, the under-layer, while the weather-worn outer leather sat as hide against his back—the Cloak of Invisibility masked.

One of the three legendary Deathly Hallows that cloak and, in his final year at Hogwarts, a third of the _avarice_ that had made him the Master of Death.

Too many knew the story, of course, the legend, which had been by nefarious design in the end.

Harry and Dumbledore, in seclusion and collusion, had spread the good word after Harry had—through trial and unfortunate circumstance—won the allegiance of the Elder Wand and claimed the Resurrection Stone. He and Dumbledore had spread word that claiming all three of those fabled hallows granted him an immortality. They had _encouraged_ such a rumour until it was taken as gospel truth.

Back in the harried early days of the war, they had used all they could to deter and delay Voldemort's influence across the wizarding world.

The lies had worked, to an extent, and driven the Dark Lord into hiding… _Well_ , he thought, _not into hiding, but into careful consideration_. Harry smiled with grim humour. Still, the lie within the legend had given them time to hunt the pieces of Tom Riddle's soul across Britain and, now, as needs must, worlds.

Harry's knee scarcely pained him as he left the rolling field of wildflowers behind, marking the edge of the riverbank. A deceptively smooth surface of crystal-clear glacial water, flowing quick below the shallows if the flat river-smooth stones tumbling along the bed were any indication. Charlie sniffed at the water's edge, dipped his nose, slurped a drink.

The Jack Russell's paws left little prints in the damp soil, scattered with fallen petals. Harry's boots and the foot of his cane left a similar story in the earth. Together, Charlie and Harry headed upstream toward the waterfall, about a quarter mile away now, as the crow flies.

Though it had not escaped Harry's notice that no such crows were flying—the sky, however inviting and spilt with burnished orange paint, a perpetual twilight, held not a single bird. The edge of the imposing wood, a daunting forest on the river's far bank, which arched away toward the amber-certain cliffs, held shadows and little else.

More mindful than unnerved, Harry ponded the Land of Faerie.

From within the folds of his doubled-cloak, pressed against his right side, he swung his simple leather satchel, worn and patched and spell-damaged, across his belly and undid the clasp. He reached into its depths, far bigger on the inside, and retrieved a silver pocket watch of unique magnificence.

He held the fine timepiece, procured from the vaults within the Department of Mysteries by one Draco Malfoy—a favour owed, a favour paid—mythril inlaid white gold along the clock face, with delicate diamond hands. The time had been magically accurate to the space between milliseconds in stormy Wales, ticking forward as time is wont to do.

The second hand moved backwards now.

Here in faerie country, Harry had begun to lose minutes. He grunted and slipped the watch back into his satchel alongside all manner of clever and useful trinkets, certain weapons, and desperate supplies.

A school of rainbow fish the size of Scottish loch salmon swam effortlessly against the current. Charlie barked once at the fish, a flash of his youth as Harry watched the dog contemplate jumping into the water after a colourful salmon-ish fish. He reached down and quickly grabbed the dog's collar as Charlie jerked forwards—then caught himself. He turned his deep brown eyes up to Harry's and nodded once, as if to say thanks. Harry let him go and they continued their slow amble along the river.

Though time was flowing backwards, it seemed, Harry felt in no particular rush. He felt calm, home, and knew faerie magic was already at work against him. He reached into his satchel again and closed his hand around a thin bar of pure iron. As if casting aside an unseen cloak, the warm sense of calm—a glamour of faux-trust—dissipated. He hadn't sensed any malice in the enchantment, but enchantment it had been. Wild, untamed, and as predictable as summer rain.

The iron would not make him any friends here in the faerie realms, but then he wasn't here to make friends. Likely the opposite, if the horcrux had had time to exert its poisoned influence and attract a few followers.

A spray of droplets from the waterfall, carried on the wind, a cool mist against his face, accompanied the dull roar of the falls. A broken horseshoe of slippery rocks encircled the pool at the base of the amber cliffs. Cliffs close enough now for Harry to see that, while semi-translucent, good solid granite rested underneath the amber. Harry imagined a great dollop of runny golden honey coating the cliffs, hardened and set over an age. The water, fed from distant glacial sources above, had cut a fine grove in the shell.

A woman, naked and beautiful, sat on the edge of the rocks, dipping her feet in the water. Harry glimpsed pale skin, almost rose-white, and a curtain of sparkling blue hair across her shoulders. He blinked and she changed, glancing over one delicate shoulder at him, and now wearing a face he knew well.

The fae-creature, for only fae she could be, sprang to her feet and grinned at him broadly. She danced across the slippery rocks, almost seeming to float, and pulled up short a few feet from Harry still wearing the wide grin and nothing else.

Charlie set up watch at Harry's side, sitting on guard.

"Hello," she said, that strange lilt to her voice—like distant chimes—Harry had heard in his own. "I was set to watch for you."

"By whom?" Harry asked politely. "Very few knew I'd be coming this way."

She rolled her eyes, not unkindly, and heaved a sigh that made her breasts rise and fall quite distractingly. Harry kept his eyes on hers, the misty droplets from the waterfall settling on his glasses.

"Why, the Avarice Josiah, of course," she said. "One mortal, he promised, and here you are all mortally and overdressed." She _tsk_ ed and glanced down at Charlie. "Good doggy."

Charlie considered, then barked an agreement that he was, in fact, a good doggy.

"Why are you wearing that face?" Harry asked—again, politely, though a flint of something cold sparked within his eyes.

"That is two questions, Harry, so be mindful of the third." The fae laughed. _Trickling_ , Harry thought. _Trick-ling._ "The third will be free, but the fourth will bind you to my will, if you're not mindful." She shrugged one shoulder. "What face do you see?"

"Someone cruelly dear to me," Harry said. "You're wearing the face of an old friend. Hermione Granger."

"Am I?" She took his hand and walked them around the edge of the rock pool, behind the waterfall, where a set of amber steps had been hewn into the cliff face. The steps, as steps often do, led upward. "That's your doing, not mine. I am a reflection, Harry, of your thoughts in the here and now."

Harry grunted. He tested his knee as the Hermione-Fae danced up the first few steps, little Charlie hopping the steps in her wake and licking at her ankles. The dog seemed to trust her. A small twinge was all he felt from the scarred lump of tissue and ruined cartilage. So be it. Harry took the steps slowly, beams of twilight breaking through the fall of water to light their way.

"I left Josiah behind not half an hour ago," Harry said. "Time must be different, indeed, if he managed to send word ahead."

"Hmm… the Avarice are a surly lot. To answer your second question," the Hermione-Fae said, "most everyone you meet here will wear the face of someone you've lost."

"That is a great many people," Harry said.

"Yes," she agreed.

Halfway up the amber cliffs and the steps emerged from behind the waterfall on a small plateau overlooking the forest and fields of wildflowers. Here he found a simple wooden table, sun-faded, atop of which rested a silver decanter with a curved, intricate handle shaped like a question mark. The Hermione-Fae poured herself a mug of something white, steam rising in lazy curls from the liquid. She held the mug between her hands and inhaled deeply.

" _Millas_ ," the Hermione-Fae said. "Would you like some?"

The scent was delicious, but Harry knew the stories of accepting food from faeries. "No, thank—" He grinned and caught himself. To say 'thank you' to a faerie, to offer thanks, in faerie speak, meant to imply a favour was owed. "I'm afraid I must decline."

Legends and stories conflicted, but the thread of eating faerie food or drinking faerie wine ran through all the tales. He didn't doubt the honeyed liqueur would be delicious, perhaps to the point of ensuring no human food would ever sate him again—both mentally and physically. Madness then death.

The Hermione-Fae winked in an as-you-will way and sipped her drink. 'Shall we continue to the summit? The climb should only take a few more minutes. There is quite a view up the top, of the Faerie Kingdoms."

Harry was doing his best not to overly admire the view here, both of the surrounding landscape and the very naked fairy wearing his friend's face. "I wonder about the Fair Folk," he said, being mindful of his third question.

The Hermione-Fae gave him another look that suggested she knew exactly what game he was playing, and so be it for now. Time didn't matter anymore, anyway. She reached down to pat Charlie on the head and scratch behind his ears, which set his tail to wagging, and Harry's eyes to some interesting gymnastics.

"The Fair Folk…" she mused. "Such a quaintly mortal name. Are we fair to you, Harry? Am I?"

"You are."

"We were here long before you, we shall be here long after." The Hermione-Fae set off up the steps again, her bushy brown hair blowing wither-and-tither about her head. "When the Almighty ordered the gates of heaven shut during the Great Revolt, those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became demons, and those of us caught between…" She grinned, her eyes flashed pure sea-grass green, lacking all white, then softened. "Does your leg pain you less?"

"Here, yes," Harry said. They had climbed a great deal above the river and the forest now, approaching the summit of the amber cliffs. The steps began to wind back and forth narrowly, almost in snug switchbacks. "Not a gift, if gift it be, I accept, though."

The Hermione-Fae laughed again, a sound which echoed across the valley. Charlie barked and listened to the echo with one wiry old ear cocked. "No gift has been given. The wellness of the Undying Lands is for all to enjoy."

Atop of the cliffs, Harry sighed—his knee had begun to ache a touch, despite the _wellness_. If he'd attempted such a climb in the real world, his knee would be cinched in a band of fire tight enough to make him howl. The Hermione-Fae dance-stepped across the amber rock, on her toes, and sprang across to the northern edge. Harry glimpsed tall mountains to the west, snow-peaked. The river disappeared that way, widening into marsh, thinning again, cutting into another forest.

From the northern edge of the cliff, however, he could glimpse an impossible distance into the east. Harry took a deep breath of clear air and exhaled slowly, as the sheer size of the task that lay ahead of him came into sharp focus and terrible relief. He could see for hundreds of miles, long past any natural curvature of the horizon. Kingdoms, towns and cities with impressive silver-white castles, a traffic of airships in sky lanes, a flotilla of white-sailed craft on the network of lakes and rivers, dotted the landscape betwixt forests, mountains, great wetlands, fens, and plains of rolling green grass. Herds of animals, horses, distant and as small as ants, galloped across those plains in throngs several thousand strong.

Farther to the east, something was amiss. The twilight sky broke into towering black clouds of angry thunder and green lightning. Across the entire expanse of the kingdoms, the only blemish on the map was that terrifying storm. Even from this distance, Harry frowned and sensed a… _wrongness_ about the storm. A familiar wrongness. The swirling maelstrom of cloud had to have been a hundred miles across, easily, though the true scale was hard to measure.

"Behold," the Hermione-Fae said, "and be welcome to the Land of Faerie."

Charlie sat down on the cliff's edge with a huff, and that about summed it up for Harry, too. "This is… immense," he managed.

"Hmm," the Hermione-Fae said and took a sip of her _millas_ , of milk and honey, licked the melody from her lips. "What happens next does not have to be violent, you know."

"Yes, I think it does," Harry said. "Or rather, you will force my hand."

"I shall do no such thing. I stand apart."

"Your people then," Harry said, waving her words away. "Semantics."

She sighed. "This is why humans are such a bad idea. You… _revel_ in unseemly shortcuts."

"The Fair Folk could step aside. Just give me what I'm here for, without trick or trial. Don't make my being here a challenge, an adventure, or a story. Just let it be."

The Hermione-Fae shook her head. "It does not work like that. Sooner ask the mortal-moon not to rise, the mortal-sun not to set. Such magicks are possible, but the fallout would be… considerable. Ice or fire, choose your destruction and sewn seeds of chaos—for both our realms."

Harry changed his tactics. "There are a great many more cities here than I thought."

"Since our… conflict… with the mortal realm, and the War Wizard Maerdyn Ambrosius, there has been no ruling queen of the Sidhe—of the Fair Folk. We are no longer ruled under one court by one royal house. We are fractured. And so…" She waved her hand across the landscape, tapping each distant castle with a delicate finger, her nail sharp and red. "Many kingdoms, some at war, some at peace. We have been infighting for centuries, which has given you mortals respite from our wrath." Her lips quirked, a smile suppressed. "No thanks necessary."

"None given," Harry muttered, casting his gaze across the immense view again. His eyes were inevitably drawn back to the castle in the distant east, the one under the thunderstorm. The one out of place. Black stone, it looked like from a distance, but nestled between mountains above a great, blue lake… A sense of something familiar, Harry had thought, not just in feel but in façade. The castle was a dark mirror of a Scottish one he knew well.

Once again, call it intuition, magic, or plain common sense—Harry guessed at the path he was meant to take. Though the walk would be long, the journey hard. He considered the boats, the airships, wondered on the friendless of alien strangers in a land he did not belong.

His fae guide followed his eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. She took an unconscious step closer to him. "You set yourself a dark path, Harry. Stay here. With me. I could delight you." She looked up at him, eyes mirroring innocent pools, if not for the sly, wicked glint of a predator only half-masked.

"I politely decline such a generous offer," Harry whispered.

She huffed. "Well, if you're set to foolishness. You'll need permission to enter _that_ castle. The Stormy Castle. It is _not_ governed by the Sidhe."

Harry considered and then asked his third question. "Whose permission will I need?"

"The headmaster's, of course," the Hermione-Fae said and gave Harry a quick hug, her naked body warm and not in the least unpleasant. She whispered into his ear, "Professor Riddle."


	3. The Bones of the Potions Master

**_Chapter Three – The Bones of the Potions Master_**

The night wore on in the _Druidstone_ , the two Alans having long since finished their chess game, their ales, and Bryan the old proprietor offering them, as he always did, rooms for the evening to save them the storm-treacherous coastal path home. For a wonder, the two men agreed—perhaps sensing something not quite well with that particular night—and were sleeping the sleep of the happily drunk upstairs, after devouring a rack of Moira's Welsh lamb, hot and greasy from the old cast-iron burner, between them.

Which left just Professor Dumbledore, unhappily drunk, and his depleted bottle of odd whisky, sitting alone at the bar. Bryan began to make a show of bolting the windows, closing the shutters, dousing the lamps. Soon he'd offer the old professor a room, as he had done for Alan and Alan. And at no charge, no charge, sir, not on a night as wild as this in the off-season.

Albus Dumbledore considered the bottle of Firewhisky before him and sighed. On his left, Josiah of the Avarice—his personal demon made manifest—shuffled a deck of dusty old playing cards, playing catch-rummy for points against himself. Albus had joined him for a few hands, deep into his cups now, but Josiah had been oddly silent since Harry had departed for worlds beyond these.

Ashamed despite the carefully crafted necessity for his drinking, Albus cradled his ruined and cursed hand against his chest and despaired. He knew the influence of the Avarice was partly to blame for his mood, but fools them all that evening, and one didn't blame the wandmaker for misuse of the wand.

 _The winemaker for misuse of the wine…_

"I recall you being far more talkative, in my youth," Albus muttered. The bottle held only about two finger's worth of aged poison left, and still he wanted to see it off, knock it back, order another round. Fifty years since his last drink, and the old tolerance of the drunk stole over his mind if not his body.

Josiah, the demon's face as withered as Albus's hand, grinned. He stood. "I've come to a decision. If you'll excuse me, I must make a… long distance call."

Albus grunted and uncorked the bottle a final time. The rim shook against the edge of his glass as he poured himself the last few amber drops. He sat the bottle back on the bar with a heavy thunk. An angry sense of finality.

"A call?" Albus asked when the demon returned.

"I have… allies in the Land of Faerie who would take it remiss if I failed to disclose of young Mr. Potter's arrival. He'll be quite the force for change, I'll wager. Folk must be warned."

"I have sent him to his death," Dumbledore whispered, aghast, caught in the avarice of his addiction.

"He has been sent to such before and made it back to this side of the veil," Josiah said, almost consolingly. "Have another drink, Albus. Keep your mind from dwelling."

* * *

Night didn't fall in the Land of Faerie, so much as the pink-orange swash of twilit sky dwindled to a more bruised purple. Stars, distant yet bright, dotted the canvas above, and a fat green moon rose in the west. The impossible curve of the land bothered Harry more than he cared to dwell on. The faltered perspectives, something he would get used to in time, were almost dizzying when focused upon—inviting motion sickness.

The Hermione-Fae had steered him on a path along the cliffs, heading north first before cutting toward the glittering kingdoms under warring rule, the silver cities of faerie. He was anticipated, she had told him, and would find friends on the road as well as enemies.

Harry had walked with Charlie a goodly way that day, until his legs told him he was tired and his body clock admitted that the hour was past his bedtime. From within his satchel, he withdrew a folded tent which sprang up on its own—much bigger on the inside, two bedrooms and some basic plumbing—and made camp in a copse of trees, a cosy glade, away from the winding dirt paths that bordered the treeline.

"Head on past the forest," the Hermione-Fae had said. "The trees will bend east, the way you'll need to go. When you come to the old church, you will know what to do next."

Harry estimated six miles or more of easy walking from the cliffs. His knee pained him now, but still less than it had for years. Charlie, his ligaments almost in a worse state than Harry's, also hadn't seemed overly bothered by the extended walk.

After setting up camp, Harry made himself a simple chicken sandwich in the tent's tiny kitchen, green spinach leaves and salted butter on rye, and fed some of the meat to Charlie. He had stores aplenty in the tent's larder, dry goods made to endure for the most part, but also more perishable provisions in an enchanted icebox. Meats, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and some seafood. Another goodly supply for the goodly way, and charmed to stay fresh far longer than normal.

Still, the perishable supplies would turn first, and given the lay of the land, time's oddity, and the unspoken words from the Hermione-Fae, Harry erred on the side of caution. He and the dog would eat the fresh food first, and sparingly, to avoid accepting anything faerie tainted.

Harry wasn't certain he'd sleep that first night in the Land of Faerie, but he was lost to his nightmares—Old Charlie pressed against his side and sharing the pillow—almost as soon as he eased himself back into bed.

* * *

When Harry awoke, a thin rime of frost clung to the outer cloth of his tent. He frowned and eased himself out of bed, his knee sensing cold weather, and limped out into the forest glade. A carpet of crunchy brown and golden leaves, almost knee-deep, had fallen from the colossal oak trees overnight. Harry considered this, then nodded. He retrieved the true-time magical pocket watch from his satchel and checked how time was flowing in the real world.

According to the white-gold watch, the hands flowing forward again, about fourteen hours had ticked by in the real world, his world, since he left the _Druidstone_. Professor Dumbledore would be nursing his hard-earned hangover and, hopefully, working toward the other parts of their plan to find and destroy the Dark Lord's last earth-side horcrux.

In the single night he had slept in the Land of Faerie, far longer than fourteen hours had past—the seasons had changed. What had been spring, lush and burdened with wildflowers, was now the cold end of autumn heading toward winter. Months, longer, half a year nearly, in one night. Harry wondered, idly, if the night made him six months older or if, in some sort of bubble, he had only aged a handful of hours and the land had aged around him.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," he said to Charlie, who had delved under the cover, his black nose and wiry white cheeks peeking out at the world. "Bacon for breakfast."

" _Russ_ ," Charlie barked, a sound gruffly and eerily close to ' _yes_ '.

Harry paused, eyed the dog, and chuckled. What had Josiah of the Avarice said? _Travel safe, Harry, and take the dog with you. Dogs are useful on the other side. Chatty._

Breaking camp after breakfast and a shower—Harry had harboured the thought of bathing in the cool spring river last night—but now, under the branches of the stark, barren trees, the river flowed dark and surly, chunks of ice-melt bobbing along the surface. The rising sun to the west was distant, cold, and painted the constant twilight of the land as close to azure as it would ever get. Harry contemplated a heating charm, but settled on his double-cloak. Once he got to walking, he'd be warm enough.

His cane broke patches of ice on the rough dirt track alongside the forest, and his knee painted him more than it had the previous day. Harry knew without knowing that whatever healing boon springtime in the Land of Faerie offered, dwindled in the colder, deader months. He felt an inexplicable sadness at that.

The first signs—remnants—of civilisation appeared just before noon, as best as noon could be judged under the washed sky. Ruins, surely, of once tall walls, and Harry guessed he was about to stumble on the old church the Hermione-Fae had hinted would tell him what he needed to do next. Harry had not cared for the sly smile behind her eyes, not in the least. What else had Josiah said? _The concept of empathy, Harry, does not occur to them. It simply does not._

He suspected, as all the old tales had warned, he was about to lose as much, if not more, than he stood to gain. But so be it. Getting out of the game unscathed had been impossible since a dark Halloween night in Godric's Hollow, over twenty years ago now.

On the towering-yet-broken wall in dark red paint, flaked, crudely scrawled, someone had left a message:

 ** _He iz DeaTH markd_**

Harry pondered that, tried to convince himself it was a coincidence, and sighed. He limped on, he and Charlie ships in the night to whatever malevolent—for he had no doubt there—force had left the message in his road.

 _Months,_ he thought. _Months have passed around me here in faerie country. I'm being hunted._

Another twist in the road, now cobblestoned though overgrown with dead weeds, led to another broken wall. The wall this time was the remains of a small cottage atop of a slight rise, which would soon lead down to the grand ruins below, the promised old church. Though it was more of a cathedral, something straight out of medieval Britain, massive and dominating the landscape. Before he dealt with the cathedral, Harry admired the rusty-red handiwork on the grey-stone wall of the fallen cottage.

 ** _tRaveLs wiv dOg_**

Charlie bared his teeth and growled low in the back of his throat at the latest crude missive, almost as if he could read it. Harry retrieved a travel bar from his satchel, honeyed oats and peanuts, sultanas, glued together with yoghurt and chocolate pieces. He broke a piece off for the dog, who sniffed and chewed and muttered ruff agreement.

"Trouble, and in our road, lad," Harry said.

He turned his attention to the grand cathedral, the hollow shell of such at least, in the heart of what he now could tell had once been a sizeable town. Time and circumstance—perhaps centuries, perhaps just one night—had reclaimed most of the town. Trees and grass overgrowing the foundations of cottages and houses torn asunder, fallen into the river. The cathedral survived as a husk, empty frames where stained-glass marvels would have once gleamed, and Harry, both trusting his instincts and regretting following the Hermione-Fae's suggestion, wound his foolish way down the rest of the hill and across the threshold of the cemetery surrounding the old church.

* * *

Uncertain what he was looking for, though expecting to know it when he saw it, Harry stepped into the ruins of the cathedral and admired the stone monolith from within. Broken old pews lined the vestibules, he sensed unhappiness in the chapels, and avoided them, and circled the pulpit as dust danced in the beams of light and Charlie kicked at his heels.

An arched stone doorway led downwards, towards the crypts, and Harry stood at the top of the steps staring down into impenetrable darkness. He tilted his head, catching distant whispers, perhaps just tricks of the wind, and laughter. Some presence, lost in those ancient tunnels, giggled and stepped forward. He caught the scent of lilac perfume, a taste of something sweeter. Harry felt himself growing hard, both with lust and fear, and hurried away from the unseen demon's threshold.

He circled the cathedral once, stepped back outside, and wandered among the hundreds of tombstones. Most were faded beyond reading, covered in moss, fallen among the weeds and the long grass, and inscribed with foreign runes, but one stood out amongst the rest— a slanted, crooked tombstone back toward the road.

The stone was newer, if still worn, and the letters engraved in the marble plaque had thinned but were still legible. The name on the grave was, and here Harry knew he'd found what he was meant to find, written in English.

He mulled the tombstone over for a long moment, glanced at Charlie, and felt an icicle of indecision as cool as midnight-winter shiver down his spine.

"Don't look at me like that," he muttered to the dog.

Harry allowed himself a moment longer to think about what he was doing, what he was about to do, and even contemplated taking a shortcut and using magic to complete the grisly task ahead. Then he reached into his satchel, fumbled around in its enchanted depths for a simple wooden-shafted shovel, borrowed from the greenhouses at Hogwarts long ago, never returned.

He began to dig.

Yesterday, Harry's yesterday, the ground would have yielded, the dirt light and loose in spring growth. Here, now, the cold had seeped into the earth and compressed the soil, gave it strength to fight. The work was hard, near-gruelling. Harry pressed the boot of his good leg against the shovel to make the old metal bite and haul dirt from the grave. Charlie stood aside the tombstone, his eyes over Harry's shoulders, watching his back.

Sometime later, Harry de-cloaked, sweaty despite the cold air, and dug for another half hour. As his lower back burned with the strain, he grit his teeth, and—

The shovel struck with a dull, hollow clunk against something undoubtedly wooden. Harry grimaced and hopped out of the grave—thankfully not the full six feet, only about four—and sat on the edge of the hole he'd dug. He sipped from his flask of mater and contemplated what happened next.

Dragging the thin coffin from the ground wasn't as exerting as anticipated—the remains inside long since bones among dust. He hauled the pine box from the pauper's cemetery and left it on the edge of the road. Harry scanned his surroundings, the world was quiet but he felt watched, or perhaps just guilty for disturbing the dead, and slipped his hand into a specially sewn pocket on his vest.

Here he retrieved a worn band of silver with a grey-black stone inlaid in the setting. He slipped the ring onto the index finger of his right hand.

Harry grasped the shovel and, hesitating only a moment, smashed through the brittle, dirt-stained wood on the face of the coffin. The wood splintered and he brushed the pieces aside before tossing the shovel against the pile of fresh-dug grave dirt. A slender skeleton, hands clasped over its chest, draped in a simple black robe faded and worm-eaten, grinned up at Harry, the jaw hanging askew.

Charlie, perhaps sensing what was about to occur, decided to wander down the road a'ways and turn his back to the mischief. Harry took another swig from his flask and suppressed a sigh. He stood over the coffin and held his right hand over the bones. The grey stone he wore in the silver ring on his index finger was on a clever little clasp, which allowed the stone to spin in its settings.

Harry spun the Resurrection Stone precisely three times and pierced the veil.

The shade of Severus Snape appeared above his earthly remains, his face pale, eyes sunken, and framed by hair as lank as it had been in life. He crossed his ghostly arms over his chest and grimaced.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter," he whispered, the words travelling across a distance best measured only in regret and wastelands of time.

* * *

A world away, in a castle enclosed by a forbidden forest, bordered by a great lake, and nestled in a horseshoe of snow-capped peaks, a young girl, Maria Vale, second-year Ravenclaw, hopped up the steps of the castle two-at-a-time and into the Entrance Hall.

She brushed snow from her shoulders, her bobbly and woollen winter cap, her nose red with cold, and sneezed, almost dropping her books and quills and parchments.

She glanced at the house point counters as she dashed toward the Great Hall for lunch, and glimpsed ten golden-red ruby gems retreating into the upper bulb of the Gryffindor hourglass. Someone had just earned a detention.

Maria grinned happily, as that put Ravenclaw in the lead by a good measure of sapphire-points, and when we are young, such things matter greatly.

* * *

 **A/N** : Should be enough to be getting on with. I'm enjoying this one. 10,000 words in a week enjoying it. I intend to continue. Promises, promises, right?


	4. The Grimdark Hunt

_Chapter Four – The Grimdark Hunt_

"How in this or any world," Harry asked, "did you end up buried here, Snape?"

Severus Snape's upper lip curled in distaste. He stood as shade, his form more substantial than a ghost but still semi-transparent, the road and forest glimpsed through him in greyscale.

"The faeries demanded…" Snape scowled into the distance, his pale eyes noting the tired old Jack Russell and the seemingly endless expanse of forests, mountains, of wide and surging rivers. "When the Dark Lord demanded a sacrifice to grant his passage into these realms, the sacrifice need not have been willing."

Harry reached into his satchel and removed a worn leather journal, the parchment pages crinkled and scripted with scatterings of faerie law, sketches of known landmarks, suspected roads, and so on, so on… He turned to a fresh page and sketched Snape's gravestone, the archaic symbols, thinking perhaps he would encounter them again down the road. Some things just felt like a message.

"Voldemort used you to cross into the faerie realms, a blood sacrifice," Harry muttered, writing it all down, the gory nature of the work long since tolerable. "Who buried you here? Do you know?"

Snape grimaced. "I… do not. The faeries would never, the Dark Lord cared even less. I should have been left to rot in the," he glimpsed the ever-twilit heavens, "faux-sun."

Harry nodded and finished his script, his quick sketches, the pieces of the puzzle. He closed the journal and slipped it away.

"I make for yon castle," he said to the shade and waved vaguely east in the direction of the storm-strewn castle. So eerily familiar, that castle, stalwart under a broken sky of angry thunder and sickly green lightning. "I'm told the headmaster there may be able to point me in the direction of one of Voldemort's last horcruxes."

"Be gone then," Snape whispered, pulling his ghostly robes about himself. "Let me rest."

Harry considered, then nodded. He reached down into the pauper's coffin and collected Snape's skull. He tossed the dusty white-grey remains from hand to hand.

"Please," Snape said, near-begged. "Don't."

Harry sighed and the Resurrection Stone flared. "I bind you," he whispered, foregoing the proper spell work, as such incantation from the Master of Death was enough.

Snape's shade shimmered, rippled like calm water in a breeze, and was drawn into his skull. Further archaic ruins appeared as engravings in the old bone, growing hot under Harry's palms, and twin points of shar yellow light glimmered in the hollow sockets. The skull shook in his hands, as if alive.

"For what it's worth," Harry said, holding up the skull so they were eye to eye. "I am sorry. But I'm afraid of what lies ahead, and I do not want to go alone. You are part of this puzzle, Professor. I promise to release you once the task is done."

"Be cursed, Potter," Snape spat, his voice faint, ethereal, troubled.

Harry nodded. "More than once, and likely more than once again before I'm done." He found a comfortable enough nook in his satchel for the Snape-shade and secured the buckle. He stretched, cracking a sore knot in his back, and turned to the road ahead.

"Come on then, Charlie—"

Charlie stood on point, ears back, a single forepaw raised. His lips pulled back from his teeth and a low growl escaped his throat. He was looking back up the road, along the edge of the wintry forest. Harry leaned heavily on his cane and strained his ears. He heard nothing, not a sound, which was entirely the problem.

His guard raised, Harry hurried down the road with his travelling companions—Charlie and Severus Snape—knowing he was hunted, and that the hunt had his scent.

* * *

Harry broke for a light lunch some hours later along the banks of a river swollen with ice melt. He rested against the beams of a broken footbridge, the planks spanning the water swept away in some recent deluge. Charlie sipped from the cool glacial river, satisfied his thirst, and curled up next to Harry, who shared pieces of beef jerky with the dog.

The twilight sky had dipped a darker shade of bruised purple, as close to night as things got around these parts. Harry mused he had walked from spring to winter and toward the beginning of spring again in the last day. He checked the priceless timepiece stolen from the Ministry, assured himself only a true day had ticked by in the real world, and contemplated the unique, mythril-inlaid button atop of the pocket watch.

He placed his thumb on the button, watching the seconds slip away in the real world, and considered his next move. Events were moving around him, certainly, and something—perhaps many somethings—were on his trail, but time hadn't slipped enough to unleash the deep magic within the watch. Not yet, at any rate.

After lunch, Harry carried Charlie across the river, knee-deep in the water, mindful of the slow flowing chunks of white ice. Paws on his shoulder, Charlie remained alert, watching over Harry's back. The dog rumbled against his chest, eager to bark at… whatever was on their trail.

Harry dropped the dog on the far bank and his bad knee buckled, a twitch of pure agony, that dropped him onto the knee. He cursed, cool sweat beading across his forehead, and bit back on the pain.

He unclenched his jaw. "Suppose it was too much to ask, eh?" he said to Charlie.

"Rrr…ask," Charlie said.

Harry blinked. "OK, sure." He reached for his cane, looped in his belt to cross the river, and hauled himself to his feet.

With the care of a man who knows he's about to stick his hand in a mousetrap, Harry put some weight on his ruined knee. For a wonder, the damn thing held. _So, not a blowout_. Still, the tangled mess of scar tissue, cursed nerves, and fused bone grumbled. A reminder that he should have brought a broomstick.

"One step at a time then."

His pace slowed, Harry limped away from the river, recovered the leaf-strewn road and began a steady incline out of the spring-winter-spring valley.

About an hour later he encountered a caravan of human-like folk, save for the blue skin, sharp purple eyes, and shocks of silver-white hair. Intricate patterns akin to ink swirls, black tattoos, crisscrossed their arms and legs. The caravans, a troupe of four, were travelling back the way Harry had walked that day—toward where he could only imagine.

He stood aside on the road as they passed, smiled softly at a little girl who waved at him from the canvas tents, as a man Harry supposed was her father hauled on the reins of the final caravan and pulled the strange beasts—something like giant beetles, though flush with a thick, golden fur and twin twirling horns.

"'Ho, traveller," the man said—at least, that's what Harry heard. In his mind, the words were alien, outlandish, but some part of him, perhaps the magical part, translated. "How fares the road?"

Charlie approached one of the beetle-beasts with his ears back, head low, and sniffed at a paw-claw. He relaxed and the great beast swung its head toward the tiny dog. They brushed noses and Charlie walked back to Harry, satisfied by whatever he'd sniffed.

"The road fares…" Harry glanced back the way he had come, unsettled. "I am pursued."

The man nodded and scratched at his chin. "Not from these lands, are you?"

"No."

"Human?"

"Yes."

The man winced and removed his hat to run a hand back through his long silver hair. "No good being human here."

"Will my trouble become your trouble?" Harry asked.

He shook his head. "It will pass us by—we are sworn to the Trickster King." A diamond-shaped amulet around the man's neck shone blue. "The roads are safe for us."

"I don't suppose you know any safe places for humans nearby."

The man grinned. "Careful with your questions—human, yes, but not as brash as humans I knew…" He frowned. "Well, humans I knew a long time ago now. Has it really been five hundred years? Surely not."

The lead caravans crested a small rise, about to disappear from sight, and the man gently slapped his reins, getting the beetle-beasts moving again. The massive wooden wheels creaked on well-oiled axles. "Make for the… _Aerle-Las_ …" He spat and twirled his finger. "Stone circle. If you hurry, son, you'll make it before third moonrise. It was built by your people during the Rending. It cannot be broken by faelings."

Harry nodded, knowing the worth of something freely given in this land. He suspected he would never meet the caravan man again.

* * *

One shining crescent of blue moon crept over the eastern horizon an hour later, and seeing it, Charlie began to lag. Harry fashioned him a quick harness, a rudimentary sling, and carried the dog nestled against his chest. Much like at the river, Charlie poked his head over Harry's shoulder. The dog's eyes were wide, watching, alert.

The road became less paved, more compressed limestone and dust. Each fall of his cane left an impression in the dirt—sort of a comma shape—marking his path as sure as if he'd left a trail of neon breadcrumbs.

Shortly after, and against all reason, a second moon rose from the north. Far fuller, pink-hued, the moon held a rough, arrogant face. One unfriendly eye of the moon seemed to wink to Harry, as if they were in a joke together, and say 'hey, you're alone and far from home, traveller, why not sit a spell, rest that knee'.

Harry ignored the moon.

Back the way he had come, Harry heard a faint screech not dissimilar to a dementor. He quickened his pace, risking his knee—now a tight knot of fire under a pumping bellows—for the promise of safety ahead. The thought that the blue man atop of the caravan had been lying had more than once crossed his mind.

The road widened and the trees thinned until they gave way entirely to craggy steeps, pockmarked hills, and for the first time since he arrived in this world, blackened ground. It took Harry a moment to sweep the landscape, the road twisting downhill through ground fire-blasted into glass, between overgrown trenches, and fields of struggling brambles, to realise he was looking at a battlefield—an old battlefield, to be sure, but unmistakable.

He spied, blackened and scorched, half-collapsed, a rough circles of stones—monolith blocks, really—that both resembled and dwarfed Stonehenge. Distances could be deceptive in the fae lands, he'd already learned, but it looked to him about…

"A steady mile's walk, just under," he muttered.

"Walk," Charlie barked.

Harry chuckled. "Going to need to get used to that."

Charlie ignored him, ears back. Harry glanced over his shoulder, saw nothing, heard nothing, felt something, and began a painful descent into the old battlefield as fast he could.

 _Of course,_ he thought, _even if the stone circle offers some protection… what's my next move?_ He couldn't stay there forever, even if he made it. A fight was coming, whether he wanted it or not. Harry clutched his cane all the harder and pushed through the pain.

Either side of the road, rough scrub grass and weed struggled to grow in the dark earth. Further out, the remnants of ancient war machines, rusted gears and wood and metal casings, half-buried in the ground. Based on that, Harry put the battle here at some decades if not centuries before—but time, time was a funny thing. He forgot that at his peril. Bones, of creatures too outlandish to understand, and simpler—of fae and, Harry was certain, human—also littered the fields. Laughing skulls, shards of white. Swords and all manner of weaponry lay spoiled or stuck in the earth.

As the third moon crept over the eastern horizon, full and as red as blood, the twilight as dim as it got—the edge of sunset in the real world—Harry limped along the road, which straightened out, and would pass within a dozen feet of the outer ring of the stone circle. He began to think he'd make it without incident when Charlie barked once, sharp in his ear.

"Shit," Charlie barked.

Harry turned in the road, hating to pause but grateful to give his knee even a moment of respite. He ran his eyes back up the hillside he'd just descended, a quarter mile or more, and beheld his pursuers for the first time.

Hooded and cloaked, at first glance he thought of Death Eaters, but these creatures were nearer eight feet tall, thin, and though human-shaped seemed to offend the eye. Odd angles bled off their dark cloaks, as if looked at through a prism.

Harry counted five. He raised his thumb and forefinger like a gun and shot the hunting party a grin.

As one, the five creatures began to _glide_ down the road. They moved swiftly, like ghosts, a mark of noticeable darkness on the fabric of the world, or dark rain sliding down glass.

Harry turned and limped on, making for the stone circle and praying his knee held long enough to put up some sort of a fight.

For all his reading, all the nights spent with Dumbledore planning this expedition, he had no idea what was running him down. Dementor-like, and yet not, caught some sort of snag in his mind, but he didn't have time to untangle it. Harry ran through a catalogue of options. _Fire_ , he thought _, if they'll burn_. _Patronus, because why the hell not._

His knee throbbed now, and Harry imagined he could see it beating, pulsing against the leg of his pants.

The stone circled reared up ahead, two minutes or so away, the heavy granite spires four or five storeys high. To his eye, the stone shone with rolling, faintly blue light, like the flame from the Goblet of Fire all those years ago. As he drew closer, he thought the light shone brighter—until he was sure of it, genuine blue flame.

 _It can sense me_ , he thought. _Built by humans_ , the caravan man had said.

A cacophony, a foul orchestra, of screeches ran ahead of the creatures, and a sharp frost settled on the back of Harry's neck. Charlie whimpered, trembled against Harry's chest, then rallied his nerve and barked at the pursuers.

In the pale shadows of the nearest stone monoliths now, Harry left the road, crunching glassed earth underfoot, disturbing bones left to rot for centuries, and made for the warmth of the circle. The stones felt… inviting, and while that could have been a deception, Harry was certain of the welcome he would receive from the creatures behind him and opted for the unknown.

Sweat running down his face, every step locking his knee tighter, Harry snarled as he crossed the threshold of the circle. He turned and collapsed against the glowing blue stones, panting hard, cane falling away as he slumped.

As his hand brushed the granite, a rush of magic in the stone swelled and a pane of blue, translucent light sprang up from the earth—a shield of human magic, bleeding from the stones, powered by… Harry guessed, his presence, and formed a protective dome around the entire circle.

"Grimdarks," he gasped between breaths, the knot in his mind unravelling, as the five creatures drew level with the edge of the blue shield.

The grimdark in the middle raised a fleshy hand, its robe falling away from its arm, and pressed a red palm against the shield. Smoke rose in sharp curls and the grimdark withdrew its hand with a hiss of frustration.

Harry stood, Charlie growled, and dragged his howling leg over to his side of the shield. "Good evening," he said.

From within a hood of cascading shadows, Harry glimpsed two pinpricks of yellow light, quickly masked. The grimdark—the one he assumed was the leader—reached within the folds of its heavy cloak and grasped a canvas sack, dripping with an ichor all too familiar.

The grimdark upended the sack and the head of the Hermione-Fae tumbled out, bloodied and pale, the flesh of her neck torn and ragged. Her eyes stared through Harry, lifeless and glazed.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Like my fanfiction? Check out my original works under the name Joe Ducie. Just give it a quick google. Thanks for reading._


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